Crown Prosecution Service

Lord Goldsmith: The annual report of the Crown Prosecution Service has today been published and laid before Parliament. Copies have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

Housing: Private Rented Sector Licensing

Lord Rooker: My right honourable friend the Minister for Housing and Planning has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	My right honourable friend the Deputy Prime Minister will publish for public consultation on 16 July a paper on licensing in the private rented sector concerning the implementation of selective licensing.
	This paper seeks to explain the Government's proposals for licensing in the private rented sector which will be set in place by the Housing Bill, currently before Parliament. In particular, the paper explains the Government's proposals for selective licensing and sets out proposals for the secondary instruments required to implement these measures.
	The powers in the Bill and proposed secondary legislation will give local authorities scope to license properties in those areas where the private rented sector is associated with problems of low demand and/or anti-social behaviour. Licensing will enable local authorities to:
	Ensure that landlords are fit and proper persons or employ agents who are.
	Ensure that the standards of tenancy relations management and property management employed by a landlord or agent are adequate.
	Impose conditions on licenses to achieve improvements in management where necessary.
	Identify landlords and support them in participating in work to regenerate rundown areas or to tackle problems of anti-social behaviour.
	Step in and manage properties where landlords refuse to meet the required criteria.
	The paper invites interested parties to comment on how these powers should be implemented in relation to selective licensing through the necessary secondary legislation.
	This consultation is being taken forward alongside the progress of the Bill through Parliament, not only to enable authorities to make an early start to tackling problems of low demand and anti-social behaviour once the Bill receives Royal Assent, but also to better inform the consideration of the Bill in Parliament.
	Copies of the paper are being sent to a wide range of interested parties including local authorities, landlord and tenant organisations and others with an interest in this issue. The closing date for responses is 8 October 2004.
	Copies of the paper will also be made available in the Libraries of the House and will be available on the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's website at www.odpm.gov.uk

Controlled Drugs

Lord Warner: The fourth report of the Shipman inquiry, The regulation of controlled drugs in the community, Cm 6249, was published today, and copies have been place in the Library. This follows the publication of reports on the extent of Harold Shipman's activities, on the 1998 investigation by the Greater Manchester Police, and on death certification and the coroner system. The inquiry's final report on monitoring of medical practitioners, disciplinary systems, whistleblowing and complaints is now expected to be published later this year.
	The Government would again like to thank Dame Janet Smith for the meticulous care which has gone into the preparation of this report; for the sensitivity with which she has listened to the views of healthcare and law enforcement professionals at the inquiry's seminars; and for the skilful balance she has struck between the need to safeguard the legitimate use of controlled drugs for patient care and the need to protect the public from their misuse. We would also like to reiterate our sympathy to the relatives and friends of Shipman's victims.
	Dame Janet's report makes three major groups of recommendations. First, she advocates setting up an integrated and multidisciplinary inspectorate to monitor and audit the prescription, storage, distribution and disposal of controlled drugs. Secondly, the report recommends a number of restrictions on the prescribing of controlled drugs which would discourage or prevent health professionals prescribing in circumstances in which it could be considered to be unsafe or unwise for them to do so—prescribing for their own use or for that of their immediate families, prescribing outside the requirements of their normal clinical practice, or prescribing by professionals convicted of controlled drugs offences. Thirdly, the report proposes a series of measures to tighten up the handling and safekeeping of controlled drugs along each part of the supply chain from the supplier to the patient's home, and to provide a complete audit trail to account for the movement of controlled drugs at each stage, both in the National Health Service and in the private sector.
	These are very significant recommendations with fundamental implications for the use of controlled drugs in the NHS and elsewhere. We will need to study them carefully and in consultation with existing inspectorates, patients, NHS and police organisations, and the healthcare professions. In particular, we will be seeking the views of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) which has already begun some valuable preparatory work on possible improvements to the present system and on the legislative changes that would be required. And we will need to wait for the recommendations in the inquiry's fifth report, on the general monitoring of general medical practitioners (GPs) and other health professionals, before we can reach final decisions on those issues on which there is a potential overlap between the two reports.
	In the mean while there is much valuable and important work already in hand. In addition to the work of the ACMD, the national prescribing centre has published preview guidance for NHS organisations and professionals summarising the legal requirements and best professional practice in the handling of controlled drugs. This work will be updated to take account of the inquiry's recommendations and issued as soon as possible. Finally, the NHS national programme for information technology will make a valuable contribution towards some of the additional safeguards proposed in the report, and we will need to consider carefully what can be delivered within the timescales of the programme.
	In welcoming the inquiry's second and third reports, my right honourable friends the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Health emphasised the need to learn lessons from the mistakes of the past. Dame Janet's report acknowledges that no system for the regulation of controlled drugs can offer complete security against abuse from minds as devious as Shipman's, while allowing for their legitimate use by health professionals to ease suffering. But her report also makes clear that much more could be done to deter and detect improper use. We accept this conclusion. In acting on her report we are determined to ensure that all reasonable measures are taken to provide the robust safeguards which are needed and which the public can rightly expect.

Thalidomide Trust: Tax Treatment of Payments

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My right honourable friend the Paymaster-General (Dawn Primarolo) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement.
	The Treasury is today laying a statutory instrument which provides that payments by the Thalidomide Trust to the people affected by the drug Thalidomide will in future be exempt from income tax. This legislative change, on which the Government have consulted with the trust, will come into effect on 5 August 2004.

Complaints, Redress and Tribunals

Lord Filkin: I am placing today in the Library of the House copies of the White Paper Transforming Public Services: Complaints, Redress and Tribunals.
	The Government are committed to improving access to administrative justice and justice in the workplace. Central and local government make millions of decisions each year about the rights and obligations of individuals and where things go wrong the public have the right to expect swift resolution. Similarly, employees are entitled to fair and decent standards in the workplace and some means of redress where these standards are breached. Tribunals deal with about 1 million cases a year. They are one means of redress, but not the only means.
	This White Paper sets out the Government's vision for an improved and seamless system of dispute resolution. Sir Andrew Leggatt, in his report Tribunals for Users, identified how tribunals can offer a better service for users. We have already announced our intention to accept the central theme of that report and create within the Department for Constitutional Affairs a single tribunal service, bringing together most central government tribunals.
	But this White Paper goes a step further. The basis for the new organisation will be the largest tribunal organisations administered by central government, collectively responsible for more than 90 per cent of tribunal cases. But the organisation we are creating will be more than just a federation of existing tribunals. This will be a new organisation and a new type of organisation. It will have a remit to innovate, looking at alternative methods of resolving disputes and stimulating improved decision making so that the need for disputes does not arise. We intend that it will formally come into being in April 2006 but we are recruiting a chief executive now.
	This approach to proportionate dispute resolution is the first manifestation of the department's new strategy for helping users of the justice system to resolve issues without recourse to formal hearings.
	To help us to deliver this new approach we also intend to create a more unified and cohesive corps of tribunal panel members better equipped to deliver the service that users expect, while continuing to provide and enhance both their independence and their expertise. To provide the tribunal judiciary with leadership through this time of change and beyond into the new service we intend to create in statute the post of Senior President of Tribunals. The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales has asked Lord Justice Robert Carnwath to act as Senior President designate in advance of legislation.
	We also believe that this new approach to administrative justice requires a new, more strategic organisation to oversee it so we plan to create an Administrative Justice Council, based on the existing Council on Tribunals which currently supervises the work of tribunals in England, Scotland and Wales.

Wilton Park: Annual Report and Accounts 2003–04

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: Wilton Park is an academically independent executive agency of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Its annual report and accounts for 2003–04 were published today and copies will be placed in the Library of the House.
	Highlights of the past year include:
	More conferences organised than ever before—49, including for the first time two held outside Europe.
	A record level of financial support from other organisations.
	Highest ever ratings by participants of the value of conferences.
	Wilton Park's performance against agreed targets for 2003–04 is shown below. The targets cover cost recovery, quality of conference programmes and standards of service, including for the current year.
	
		
			  03–04 Target 03–04 Performance 04–05 Target 
			 Total income £3,732,000 £3,635,000 £3,987,000 
			 Excellent rating for programmes 57% 57.9% 57% 
			 Excellent rating for administration 89% 86.5% 89%

University Research: Dual Support System

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: The Government are setting out their overall strategy for the dual support system in the Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004–2014, published as part of Spending Review 2004.
	The key response to the consultation (available at http://www.ost.gov.uk/policy/universityresearch.pdf) was that higher education institutions requested a further year for the implementation of the extensions to the TRAC accounting methodology. The Government accepted this, as I and the Minister for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education (Alan Johnson) announced in our letter to vice-chancellors of 24 November 2003. (http://www.ost.gov.uk/research/higher—educ—letter.pdf).
	In the light of responses received and subsequent consultation with stakeholders, the Government have decided as follows:
	Research councils will pay a single percentage (as discussed in the investment framework) of full economic costs (FEC) for almost all types of grants for research projects and programmes. (Councils may announce special arrangements for certain types of grant, for example small travel grants, in due course). Research councils will include time spent by permanent academic staff, as calculated using the extended TRAC accounting methodology;
	Research students will continue to be excluded from the FEC regime for the time being. This will be revisited when TRAC has been successfully extended to teaching;
	The additional resources allocated in spending reviews for research councils to pay a greater proportion of the costs of research (£120 million from Spending Review 2002 and a further £80 million from 2007–08 allocated in SR04) will be allocated between research councils from 2006–07 in such a way as to preserve the current balance of research volume. Detailed modelling is currently under way; an announcement will be made when this has been completed.
	The guidance and checklist on the pricing of projects for non-research council funders has been slightly revised in the light of comments received; the updated version will be placed on OST's, HEFCE's and SHEFC's websites (www.ost.gov.uk, www.hefce.ac.uk, www.shefc.ac.uk).